Dist. 205 Approves Sale of Jackson Elementary School Building

ROCKFORD - Rockford Public Schools stand to get some new revenue after the District 205 school board voted to approve the sale of Jackson Elementary school to CICS Patriot Charter School. 

Patriot Charter School is currently a kindergarten through sixth grade school, but they're looking to expand, so they purchased the school on Rockford's near east side in order to grow.  The sale price for the school is $290,000. 

RPS has approved the sale, but the charter school now has 120 days to inspect the building to see if it's worth it for them to go through with the purchase.  The agreement between CICS Patriot Charter and RPS allows the charter school to go back on its offer.  Jackson has asbestos problems and may have other problems upon further inspection.

"CICS can do their due diligence to look at the engineering, the electrical, the structure and look at building out the facility to make sure it meets their needs," said Todd Schmidt, Chief Operating Officer for District 205 schools.

"If it does meet their needs then they will give us a check for $290,000 for the building."

The school district stands to make money anyway.  There's a down payment on the building of $29,000 due five days from Tuesday night's board meeting.  If Patriot Charter does go through with it they'll have 20 days after the 120 day contingency period to pay the rest of the money for the building.